Southeast Asia has long been a significant target for European maritime trade and seaborne expansion. From the early colonial period onward, private traders operating under the auspices of powerful trading companies such as the British East India Company (EIC) and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) journeyed from distant lands in search of the rich resources that the region offered. These resources included valuable Southeast Asian spices, as well as Chinese silks and porcelains, which were highly prized commodities in Europe and beyond. Due to the increasing economic opportunities in the region, Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia grew rapidly during the eighteenth century. Historians such as Leonard Blussé and Tonio Andrade have meticulously chronicled the rise of the Chinese population in and around plantation crops—specifically pepper and sugar plantations—in Dutch-controlled Java. However, the growth of the Chinese population in pepper plantations under British Malaya has not received the same level of scholarly attention and remains relatively understudied. A comprehensive review of the early British colonial ventures in Southeast Asia is therefore essential. Such a review provides a solid foundation for understanding how the British first gained insight into the distinctive cultural and social characteristics of the Chinese kongsi—cooperative organisations or secret societies—within the particular contexts of Borneo and Java. It also sheds light on the reasons behind the increased British demand for Chinese labour in Southeast Asia during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. What were the inherent kongsi practices observed by the British? How can we interpret the connection between early British trade expeditions and their strategic ambitions in the Malay Peninsula? Furthermore, how did the British determine what type of labourers would be most useful to their colonial development projects? These questions are crucial to understanding the foundation of Chinese migration from China to Malaya.